In another class, students will lose one point every time they use the words illegal alien or illegals rather than the preferred terms of undocumented migrants/immigrants/persons.The punishment for repeatedly using the banned words, Breikss warns, includes but [is] not limited to removal from the class without attendance or participation points, failure of the assignment, and in extreme cases failure for the semester.
Breikss is not the only WSU faculty member implementing such policies.
Much like in Selena Breiksss classroom, students taking Professor Rebecca Fowlers Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies course will see their grades suffer if they use the term illegal alien in their assigned writing.
According to her syllabus, students will lose one point every time they use the words illegal alien or illegals rather than the preferred terms of undocumented migrants/immigrants/persons. Throughout the course, Fowler says, students will come to recognize how white privilege functions in everyday social structures and institutions.
In an email to Campus Reform, Fowler complained that the term illegal alien has permeated dominant discourses that circulate in the news to the extent that our society has come to associate ALL unauthorized border crossings with those immigrants originating from countries south of our border (and not with Asian immigrants, for example, many of whom are also in the country without legal documents and make up a considerable portion of undocumented immigrants living in the country).
The socio-legal production of migrant illegality works to systematically dehumanize and exploit these brown bodies for their labor, Fowler continued.
White students in Professor John Streamass Introduction to Multicultural Literature class, are expected to defer to non-white students, among other community guidelines, if they want to do well in this class.
In the guidelines in his syllabus, Streamas elaborates that he requires students to reflect on their grasp of history and social relations by respecting shy and quiet classmates and by deferring to the experiences of people of color.
Streamaswho previously generated controversy by calling a student a white shitbag and declared that WSU should stand for White Supremacist Universityalso demands that students understand and consider the rage of people who are victims of systematic injustice.
Later in the syllabus, Streamas goes even further and accuses Glenn Beck of being an insensitive white.
Several other WSU professors require their students to acknowledge that racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, and other institutionalized forms of oppression exist or that we do not live in a post-racial world.
Ari Cohn, a lawyer with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, told Campus Reformhe considers such requirements to be contradictory, even given the sensitive nature of the courses.
"It is notable that one of the syllabus provisions warns: The subject material of this class is sensitive and controversial. Strive to keep an open mind. How are students supposed to approach these sensitive and controversial materials at all, let alone to keep an open mind, if they have to fear that a misconstrued statement, or one that unreasonably offends a classmate will lead to a grade reduction or even removal from class?"
Neither Breikss nor Streamas replied to Campus Reforms request for comment.